1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to illumination devices, and more particularly, to a flash illumination device for use with mobile related electronic products to provide illumination which simulates natural light in order to be acceptable to the human eyes. The flash illumination device is energy-efficient, compact, flexible, diverse in shape, and capable of surface emission typical of an organic light-emitting diode.
2. Related Art
Mobile electronic products evolve by leaps and bounds, from desktop personal computer, notebooks, digital cameras, tablet pad computers, to smartphones, providing ever-changing functions. Mobile electronic products not only provide wireless communication but are also capable of taking pictures and shooting videos. The emergence of social networking websites and social networking applications brings about a phenomenon, that is, most mobile electronic product users can take pictures and shoot videos with mobile electronic products and upload the pictures and videos to social networking websites. Hence, the functionality and quality of picture taking and video shooting is of vital importance to electronic products nowadays.
The camera lens of each early mobile phone does not come with a flash; as a result, pictures taken with early mobile phones in a dim environment are seldom clear. However, with light-emitting diodes becoming more sophisticated, a light-emitting diode is disposed beside the lens of mobile phones of today to serve as a flash typically configured to operate in automatic, off, and on modes. Taking pictures with a flash is confronted with a problem, that is, the light-emitting diode which serves as the flash consumes a certain amount of electrical power otherwise available to the mobile phone. Hence, a conventional light-emitting diode which serves as a flash is likely to use up all the electrical power of the mobile phone after several instances of operation. In addition, light is emitted from a light-emitting diode instantaneously and in a point-emitting manner; as a result, the light emitted from a light-emitting diode is not only unfit for supplemental lighting but also occurs only at the instant of flashing. Furthermore, LED light-emitting diodes differ from sunlight in color temperature and color spectrum, and thus the light emitted from light-emitting diodes are greatly distorted and unnatural even if it were conducive to supplemental lighting. Although LED light-emitting diodes generate light as a supplemental source, its physical property is very different from the natural light source. Light-emitting diodes is a point light source, it provides incomparable narrow-band light character with natural light; therefore, while preparing LED flash, such LED device unit needs a more complicated additional structural backlight modules or some extra lenses in order to provide enough light intensity for consistency in order to overcome such natural disadvantage. As a result, not only must light-emitting diodes be mounted on something thick to thereby garner more weight and thickness, but light-emitting diodes also require an intricate manufacturing process and assembly process and thus incur much manufacturing costs; in view of this, light-emitting diodes are not the best source of light. On the other hand, plenty conventional materials which light-emitting diodes are made of natural raw materials found on the Earth, mainly rare earth materials or inorganic elements. As time goes by, the Earth is going to run out of natural resources.
As mentioned before, a light-emitting diode disposed at a mobile phone can serve as a flashlight, though the light-emitting diode consumes electrical power and, after operating for just a short while, actually consumes much electrical power otherwise available to the mobile phone or a connected electronic device, and in consequence users have to charge the light-emitting diode more often in order to render the light-emitting diode operable. Also, a single light-emitting diode disposed at the mobile phone is obviously not bright enough to provide optimal illumination and broad illumination. Furthermore, the point-emission of a light-emitting diode is too strong to be seen directly with the naked eye, otherwise the watchers will not only have their pupil contracted instantly to thereby perceive dark images and residual images but also suffer eventually from poor accommodation of lens or retinopathy, thereby ending up with visual impairment. Evidently, attempting to imitate the natural light source, light-emitting diodes do not provide the best solution to human beings' demand for illumination, not to mention that the blue light emitted from light-emitting diodes is harmful to the human eyes.